eXodus eSports

It’s a new dawn for eXodus eSports as renowned Planetary Annihilation player AndreasG joins the team. The organiser of the AndreasG Casual 3 and AndreasG Pro 3, this individual so modest he named his tournaments after himself will be working as a Tournament Admin. What does that mean? Simply put he’ll be helping us to continue putting on great tournaments for the Planetary Annihilation community, as well as help expand our every growing pool of community maps.

When asked if working for eXodus was everything he ever dreamed it could be, AndreasG had this to say:

“That is one way to put it. I like to think that eXodus chose me, I didn’t chose it. I never wanted fame, but the fame wanted me.”

With just two weeks to go until Clash Of The TITANS, our 1v1 swiss tournament with the largest prize pool yet, we’re happy to unveil the final maps drawn from some of the finest available for the game. We’ve got old favourites and a few new ones to test your skills, so use the time well to prepare because your opponents will.

Round 1 – Roc

Featuring two late asteroid spawns, it primarily plays out on the main planet with orbital being a rare feature. An initially defensible looking base proves to be hard to hold, with multiple entrances providing ample opportunity for raids. Large craters between the bases mean frontal assaults can quickly turn to the defenders advantage.

Round 2 – Diadem

A map by superouman seen in the Big Bang Finals, it featured heavily in the finals and may be remembered for one particularly epic game.

Don’t be deceived by its simple two path appearance, there’s a lot of opportunity for trickery. Water in the lakes can be grabbed by air, or denied by torpedo launchers. High ground on either sides of your base must be guarded jealously else you will lose access to sizable amounts of metal not only on the ledges, but also on the ground around them with Grenadiers being free to rain death down on you.

If you don’t know this map like the back of your hand then you need to ladder more as it has been a feature of the pool since the introduction of custom terrain. Featuring heavy tank play, the rush to grab the easily defensible six metal to one side has died down a little with the Drifter providing an easy way to raid this space. While an all vehicle play with limited air support has been a mainstay on Forge, some players have been experimenting with early Booms to take advantage of this.

Round 4 – Aquarius

This map by superouman represents the first of our new entries, not seen before in tournament play.

I’m excited to see how this one plays out. There’s a great concentration of metal on a plateau between the two bases, along with smaller amounts spread out across several platforms. The sea stretches between both bases, and a strong position here also offers firing opportunities direct onto the enemy’s stronghold.

Round 5 – Sauron

Another map by superouman also not seen in tournament play before.

As with many of his maps it has two primary routes, one which leads through a central arena with strong metal concentrations to the side. Meanwhile the back route has an easily defensible choke, but the metal sits beyond it and has two paths curving either way around a massive repository of metal accessible only by air.

Rather like with the Prof X system, I think the outcome of the battle for the air accessible metal will also determine the outcome of the game.

Round 6 – The Island

A map by Alpha2546 which features two asteroids accessible from the start of the game.

Most of the metal is on the land between the bases, but it’s spread out in a forest area. With terrain preventing the easy traversal of land troops from one side to the other, expect to see plenty of air raids. While the sea doesn’t have as much, it offers easy rear access to the base. Plenty of opportunities for Drifters, or just plain old coastal bombardments.

The asteroids have very little in the way of metal and I don’t expect them to feature in most games, but they do offer an opportunity to give yourself a slight economic edge should the game stalemate, and a way to end the tournament in glorious fashion.

Tiebreaker – Systeem X

In case of a tie we have this final system from [RLM]Mot9001, updated by PAG_Elodea for the SuperCommander tournament series.

This is a very old school map. Very little terrain, and a spread out metal layout which will favour aggressive bot or air play. This kind of system sees a lot of back and forth and can either end very quickly, or lead to a protracted battle with both sides probing the other for weaknesses. Anyone who played Planetary Annihilation back in beta will feel very at home here.

It’s our biggest prize pool yet with $600 up for grabs. It’s a deep pool too, monetary prizes for the first seven places in the tournament. You don’t need to be the best to be in with a chance to win something, but rise to the top and $300 can be yours. See the sidebar for full details on the prize distribution.

This is a swiss style tournament. 64 players can participate in six rounds, no one gets knocked out, you get a game every round. New to swiss? As the rounds advance the swiss system calculates a score based on your results and the seeding of your opponents. The deeper into the tournament you go the more well matched your opponents will be. It’s a tournament designed to give you better and better matches as you go on.

Planetary Annihilation: TITANS has launched. On the day we hosted a livestream and ran a number of public games. We had an opportunity to interview the Project Leads, Tom Vinita and Steve Thompson of Uber Entertainment. We asked them about the design considerations, the process, the changes, and of course, what their favourite unit was.

We’d like to apologise in advance for the noise during the interview. We were speaking to them literally an hour after the launch, so they’d been rather busy and we didn’t get much time for a proper soundcheck.

We also hosted a number of public games that day to celebrate the launch of Planetary Annihilation: TITANS. Check them out on the videos page. And have a look at Planetary Annihilation: TITANS article which details all the changes in this expansion.

There has been a mystery brewing at Uber and a lot of people have been guessing as to what it might be. New units? New balance? New terrain? Hover units? More orbital?

No one guessed it would be all of that and more.

Introducing Planetary Annihilation Titans, a standalone expansion for Planetary Annihilation. Available to all Kickstarter backers for free and to any Planetary Annihilation owner for 66% off. It’s a new dawn for Planetary Annihilation.

We here at eXodus eSports were fortunate enough to gain early access to Planetary Annihilation: TITANS. To help you on your journey we’ve put together an article which tells you everything you need to know about Planetary Annihilation: TITANS. It will walk you through the changes, the units, the maps, and our own experiences with it all.

SPOILER: it’s impossibly awesome.

But what of Mystery Mayhem? It will be played using Planetary Annihilation: TITANS. But what if you don’t own a copy? Well we’re happy to announce that everyone who is signed up to the tournament will receive a copy of Planetary Annihilation: TITANS absolutely free courtesy of Uber Entertainment. That’s right, not only do you get to participate in this awesome event with all this cool new stuff, but you’re getting a copy of the expansion just for taking part.

We’ll be playing with Planetary Annihilation: TITANS balance, units and maps so you better start getting ready for this new era of Planetary Annihilation. And if you’re still on the fence after reading our article, well why not come watch live on Saturday and see for yourself?

64 players entered, and after 213 matches, some short, some long, some grueling back-and-forths, we have ourselves a winner. Our congratulations go out to them, as well as the individuals who claimed the second and third place prizes. Also our thanks to all those who took part in the event and helped make it the success that it was.

If you weren’t able to join us yesterday then you missed a real nail biter, but we’ve been working hard in the editing suite and the VODs are now online. Head on over to the matches page and check them out. The ones with a YouTube symbol have VODs, while the PA Stats symbol will allow you to access replays of the game in question.

Match of the finals has to go to Final G3, close right up until the end. Make sure to watch it, though beware spoilers if you watch it before other matches.

The clock is counting down on the Big Bang Finals, where eight players will be battling it out for a $300 prize pool. Make sure you join us tomorrow at 180:00 UTC on hitbox to watch the action live. We’ve got a wide range of community maps lined up, and we can’t wait to see how player’s adapt.

If you haven’t filed one already, then you’re running out of time to make a prediction on how the Big Bang Finals will finish up. Not sure? Check out their player profiles, have a look at the stats and history; decide how you think they weigh up.

We’ll be announcing the name of whoever comes the closest with their prediction on the stream. See if you can do better than “right 52% of the time” me.

Our thanks go out to all of those who participated in the qualifiers, you made it a hell of an event. 64 signed up, 42 partook and 8 made it through to the Big Bang Finals and claimed their Armalisk Commander code.

We streamed a lot of the action live on our hitbox channel, but WPMarshall was also providing backup and casting other matches separately. All the VODs are now online and available for your enjoyment, that’s 17 cast matches in all! Give the page a moment to load, there’s a lot of games on there. Just look for the YouTube symbol. But if there’s any game you want to watch yourself then click on the PA Stats symbol and load the replay for yourself!

Don’t have time to watch them all? Then I’d recommend the following as highlights of the tournament:

Round 2 Group D Match H

Round 3 Group F Match L

Round 7 Group H Match Y (this wasn’t shown live)

I hope you enjoy watching these as much as we did casting them. Be sure to join us on Saturday for the finals. We’ve got some pretty exciting maps lined up.

It’s only a week until the Big Bang Qualifiers, the first half of the Big Bang tournament which sees 64 players competing for a prize pool of $300. Sign-ups are still open, so grab a place while you still can.

The following week sees the eight victors competing in the Big Bang Finals. The maps for this stage have now been chosen and we’re pretty excited about the selection. It represents some of the best work the community has created and even includes one from Uber. We’ve got small maps, we’ve got large maps, we’ve got multi planet, we’ve got high metal and we’ve got low metal.

eXodus eSports is proud to announce Big Bang, a new 1v1 tournament for Planetary Annihilation. Can you make the biggest boom, qualify for the finals and win from the $300 worth of prizes on the line?

Participation is open to all players, no matter your skill level. But only for the first 64 players to apply, after that you’ll be put in the reserves where you’ll be eligible to take the spot of any player who is a no show.

The tournament will be split in two. The qualifiers will consist for eight groups of eight playing a round robin. This means every player will play seven games. At the end of the games the top player from each group will proceed to the finals which will be held one week later.

Make sure that you’ve read through the rules, meet all the tournament requirements and put this into your diary. You don’t want to miss out just because you can’t handle time-zones. Given the amount of money at stake we will be enforcing the rules tightly, so ensure you are familiar with them.

Our thanks to Uber Entertainment who have generously provided a number of commander codes for this tournament.

I’M NOT SURE I’M GOOD ENOUGH

All are welcome no matter their skill level, and some of the best players in the game today come from humble beginnings. You’re guaranteed seven games and will get a chance to play a variety of players from bronze to uber, and may even get your game cast live. And who knows, perhaps you’re better than you think you are. Tournaments were made for upsets.

If you play ranked then you’re already practicing for this event since we’ll be using ranked maps for the games. If you’re not playing ranked, well then now is a great time to get started!